aversacks lay at their feet
between them and the dying fire; their staves were beside them. The
two scouts now stretched themselves comfortably in the sun, drew their
hats over their eyes, and discussed their own affairs.

'I say, Chippy, we're bound to have plenty of cash to see us through
now,' said Dick, 'even if we have to spend steady on for the rest of
the journey.'

'Rather,' replied Chippy; 'there's a lot o' flour left, an' some tea
an' sugar, an' the bakin'-powder, an' the lump o' salt; an' we've only
spent eleven three-fardens so fur.'

'Yes,' chuckled Dick. 'I can see father smiling now as he gave me the
two half-sovereigns. I know as well as can be what he thought. He
felt sure we should be back before now, with our ten shillings for
way-money all blued. And one half-sovereign is in my belt, and almost
all the other is in my purse.'

On the other side of the hedge below which the scouts lay, a couple of
evil faces looked at each other with evil joy in their eyes. Every
word the boys were saying was falling into the ears of a pair of big,
burly tramps. One was a stout, middle-aged man, the other a tall young
fellow with long legs; both belonged to the worst class of that bad
order.

When will this pest of lazy, loutish loafers, often brutal and
dangerous, be cleared from our pleasant highways and byways? There are
beautiful stretches of our country where it is not safe for women and
children to stroll unattended through the quiet lanes, simply because
the district lies on a tramps' route from one big town to another, and
is infested by these worthless vagrants. There is nothing that
dwellers in the country see with greater satisfaction than the
conviction, slowly ripening in the public mind, that this tramp
nuisance and danger must shortly be dealt with, and the firmer the hand
the better. They are the people to shut up in compounds, where they
should be made to do a few strokes of labour to earn their living,
instead of terrorizing cottagers and dwellers in lonely houses for food
and money. But now to our heroes and their experience with two members
of this rascally order, feared and dreaded in every solitary
neighbourhood.

We have said that the scouts had made their halt beside a brook. They
had paused on the bridge where the brook ran under the road they were
following, and had observed that a path turned from the road, passed
through a narrow gateway from which the gate was missing, a